Designers can keep their professional status current from the comfort of their office by taking advantage of online CEU sessions offered by top kitchen and bath brands. Recently, KBB sat in on a few of these seminars and summarizes their key takeaways.
Outdoor Kitchens: Making Them Beautiful and Functional – Middleby Residential
This session discussed the planning, specifying and execution of residential outdoor kitchens.
Key takeaways:
- Understanding the distinction between perimeter and destination outdoor kitchens.
- Permitting and HOA regulations can impact the construction schedule.
- Structural options include ground-up custom designs as well as pre-fab. Pergolas, freestanding construction, islands (custom designs and ready-to-finish (RTF) are popular options.
- Effectively addressing environmental issues, such as sun/shade, prevailing winds, insects and rain will impact the design.
- It’s important to tailor features to typical usage; for example, cooking preferences, year-round or seasonal usage, guest capacity/seating.
- Designing in zones – hot (cooking), cold (refrigeration), wet (sinks and drainage). dry (food prep and storage) and refuse (trash containment) – is key to a fully functional space.
- Utility needs – natural gas or propane, water and drainage, electrical and lighting – must be balanced with site and code restrictions.
Inspiring Color in the Kitchen – True Residential
This session discussed how incorporating color in your designs works for you and your clients. The discussion focused on the power of color, how to infuse color into kitchens, tools to use to collaborate with clients and how using color can impact your business.
Key takeaways:
- Color can push your designs to the out of the ordinary and help your online gallery garner attention.
- Humans process color through biological reactions, collective unconscious, conscious symbolism, cultural influences and mannerisms, the influence of trends in fashion and styles and personal relationships.
- Certain cultures have very different color tendencies than in the U.S.
- Some people use color to get motivated in the kitchen, and some may want something more relaxing.
- You can determine color needs by asking your clients how they will use the space, what they want to get out of spending time there and about their own personal tastes.
- You can get color inspiration through nature, which is all around us; hospitality spaces (can take bolder ideas and translate them into hideaway spaces or those not used all the time); food and beverages; and travel.
- Clients get excited about where the color came from; if they can personalize it, it will mean more.
Luxury Kitchens Today – JennAir
Luxury used to be considered over-the-top living. Today’s luxury ideals are defined by values – not possessions – but homeowners do want their selections to make a statement. Luxury can encompass efficiency, customization, aesthetics and authenticity.
Key takeaways:
- Efficiency. This includes time-saving gadgets and technology in the form of remote devices and other digital conveniences. Homeowners want options and choices that express who they are rather than what they have. Luxury also includes the belief in sustainability and social responsibility through things like reducing emissions.
- Customization. People want details that telegraph their beliefs and qualities that can affect the experience. Luxury clients understand the value of something that is well made. Those items that are the most visually refined are the most memorable. Personalization is more important than how much something costs.
- Aesthetics. Quality comes into play here as well, and authenticity trumps imitation. Beauty does have a role in luxury, as does something timeless and classic, blending old and new. Clients want to revisit something they always love and of which they never grow tired.
- Authenticity. Luxury clients know the difference between imitation versus the real thing. They want something original, not necessarily something everyone else has. It all about setting the trends and now following them.
